children – Page 12 – Myriad & Sundry

Pink Pinwheel Party

March 31, 2014 No Comments

Coraline had a pink pinwheel party for her first birthday. Sometimes pink can be elegant and playful without being overwhelmingly girly, and that’s what I was going for. We rented a little community center nearby for her party since there are so many more kids with friends and family now! It was well worth it to reduce chaos, and that we we didn’t need to figure out what to do with Sasha, who is confined to our first floor at home now that she is older.

We had two kids tables, one of ours and borrowed one from a neighbor, which was a great idea. We had a lot of 2 and 3 year olds in attendance!

The kids had a little craft to make their own pinless pinwheel they could do as well, and while I think the parents enjoyed it, I think it would be even more perfect for 4-5 year olds. I prepared all the paper for the pinwheels so no hole punching was needed, and gave directions for finishing off the pinwheel. All you need are some pipe-cleaners, pencils, stickers and crayons, plus scissors & stapler for parents to secure the pinwheel.

Each table had pinwheels for a playful centerpiece (a few of the arrangements were taken with them by guests, a sign of a great little centerpiece in my opinion!!). To make the pinwheels, I used a spray adhesive to make double-backed 12×12 scrapbook paper, then cut them down with a paper cutter in various sizes from 8×8 to 11×11 (most were around the 9×9 range).

I made the pinwheels without using pins, to keep it safe for all the kids attending the party so no one might be pricked. Instead I used pipe cleaners and buttons (I will allow that the buttons were small and a choking hazard themselves, but trusted they would keep secure to the sticks under parents’ watchful eyes, as they did).

The pinwheels are attached to candy sticks I purchased at Jo-Ann, or pre-painted dowel rods I purchased from Factory Direct Craft. The two types of clear glass bottles were a relatively cheap find at Factory Direct Craft (I cannot find them online anymore), and I put sand at the bottom.

I wanted to integrate photos into her party, just as I did with Jameson’s, since I take so many and love the conversation starters they provide to guests. Since the room had a chair rail along the walls, I avoided doing the giant “1” in photos that I did with Jameson’s because it would’ve looked awkward. Instead, we randomly put photos around the room with painters tape.

She also had her monthly photos banner above her high chair. I made small pinwheels, secured with brads and a glue gun to the clothespins, hung on twine. The pinwheels are top heavy, so it needed to be against a wall where they wouldn’t move around much.

For food, we kept it simple party fare: pulled pork, pasta salad, cheese & crackers tray, veggie tray, chips and an assortment of dips, fruit salad and of course, dessert. I made the same yellow cake recipe from her cake smash into cupcakes, and tried a chocolate cake from the same site as well.

I thought maybe Coraline would like a chocolate cake since she wasn’t fond of the vanilla, but no dice. She did taste it though, but putting her tongue right out onto the icing!

Daddy cut up the cupcake a bit and she tried the actual cake, but for the most part she was content (and sometimes concerned) just to look around at all the activity.

Coraline is big into trying to put things back, and she attempted to buckle herself up without success.

Meemaw and Aunt Holly came up for the occasion; unfortunately Uncle Tyler and Grandpa had to miss it.

We also had some baby friends join us, and Jameson’s friend Nathan came as well ready for St. Patrick’s Day!

When it was time to open gifts, Jameson wanted to jump right in and help. He certainly entertained, putting a bag over his head!

Coraline wanted to “try” her gifts before opening them. She got a lot of great toys and adorable clothes. She’s become partial to the Little People dolls, as well as putting together the Mega Blocks (Jameson was always into taking things apart when he was this age, so it’s fun to see Coraline putting things together instead).

We were so excited with all our friends and family who were able to come. We saw cousins and uncles who we hadn’t seen in a year and nearly all our friends invited were able to join us to celebrate Coraline’s birthday!

I love this one of Coraline, playing peekaboo with Grandma with her hands which is new!

I can’t believe that our little girl is one. From here out, our little baby will be growing up into an awesome little girl.

children, life with baby

Coraline’s Cake Smash

March 13, 2014 2 Comments

This year, I decided to try and do a “real” photo shoot for Coraline’s first cake. Spoiler alert: she liked it just as much as Jameson, which is to say, they were quite a bit concerned with what was on their fingers.

For Jameson, I went the healthy route and made a cake from baby food. It tasted just like carrot cake, except better (if I do say so myself). I made a relatively healthy cream cheese frosting to go with it, and he wasn’t super impressed and didn’t dig in the way I’ve seen some kids do so. One of the things I’ve seen since his first birthday is the cake smash session, where baby gets a photo shoot all to herself, so I decided to give that a shot.

This time, thinking I would get better results from said baby, I made a traditional yellow cake. I used this 3 egg yellow cake recipe, because I only had 3 eggs on hand. It actually turned out great and very moist but solid enough that I didn’t accidentally carve it up while icing, and I’d make it again in a heartbeat. For the frosting, I realized I needed to get more ingredients regardless, so I went all out with a frosting recipe calling for 3-1/2 pounds of powdered sugar that I actually found on a couple different sites. I’m saving the leftover frosting in the fridge for the cupcakes I’m making for her party on Saturday.

I didn’t know, but for decorating cakes, a “crusting” type of frosting is recommended. I didn’t add all the powdered sugar (I did about 3-1/4), so mine didn’t crust too much and actually stayed just right for what I wanted for Miss Coraline. This frosting is intensely sweet but such a wonderful consistency.

For decorating, I borrowed a friend’s decorating bags from Wilton and her decorating tips. After doing a “base coat” of frosting to help the roses stick, you want the larger star-shaped tip, and you’ll just go around in the circle to make the rose. I wasn’t too worried about making mistakes or leaving gaps, I just made little “daisy” flowers between. I’m no professional, but I think it looks great! Here’s a great tutorial for even more professional looking results.

I even cut a slice out (which I later ate) to show her the insides, and helped her taste the cake itself, but still no dice. She’ll have plenty of opportunities to try it again in the next couple days. This still made for some super cute photos, and I’m really glad I took the time to do it!

Oh, that super duper poofy tutu? I made that, no sewing involved. The hardest part was cutting!

I figured, no sense in paying a lot for something that’s going to get ruined with icing. The ribbon was more expensive than the tulle so if you already have ribbon to use it would’ve been about $2 to make. But, I will say that if you want it to go all the way around you need more than 2 yds of tulle! I wasn’t too worried about not having enough; it reached a little over half way around her waist and I tied the ribbon in the back. Total cost was about $4! If you want to try your hand, check out this tutorial I followed.

children, life with baby

11 Months for Coraline

February 17, 2014 No Comments

This month was harder for little Coraline in terms of sleeping. While she was generally happy during the day, her nights were filled with crying out: Only for a moment or two before she fell back asleep on her own, but none of us liked hearing her cry out in pain for weeks at night, with pain medicine or not.

She finally broke through two more of her top teeth, for a total of 5. (And just days after turning 11 months old, she broke through the last of the swollen set, finally, for a total of 6 teeth). Hence her cute quirky crooked smile here she used while teething!

She spent most of this month teething, with a cold, and then got a yeast and bacteria infected rash under her arm. One of the tubes in her ear came out, unusually early (it was only in about two months). She’s currently on 4 medications, including two ointments, ear drops and oral antibiotics. Ooof! Poor thing.

Coraline figured out crawling within just a week after I recorded her video of the scoot she had been doing. She didn’t go backwards at all, and just straight up started moving forward. Sometimes she puts her feet down in what Brian calls her spider crawl which cracks me up, and rarely she’ll put both feet and hands on the ground with no knees, but straight in the air.

And she’s getting up on her knees! Not pulling up yet. This month, we’ve brought out the stand and play toy, to help her practice standing and pulling up. She loves the jumparoo and both jumps like a maniac and also swings herself back and forth like I never saw Jameson do in it, but she doesn’t do very much standing outside of those supported activities. Coraline has such little feet that I sometimes wonder if that might have something to do with it.

Our babbling has just started becoming more words and imitation. She mostly just says “hi”, and if I can say that aside from the babble of mamama and dadada her first real words have been “dada” and “hi”. We’ve started taking sign language class with her, as we did with Jameson. So far, I’m pretty sure she’s signed “all done” (or just being crazy at the end of meal time).

She’s learned to point with her index finger and I can see her little wheels turning. The other day she held up Jameson’s socks to us, and when I responded “sock”, she put it down on top of her own socks and stared at it.

Coraline has learned how to rock herself back and forth, though she’s still very conservative about it. She rocked herself in the glider during the monthly photos this month.

She’s a 17lb even small fry, just beginning to show preferences in what she’s eating. Yes to fruit, peas, and pasta. No to mashed potatoes, and many vegetables. Meat is hit or miss. She still practices the sippy, but since she doesn’t even take a bottle that well from us very often, we aren’t forcing the sippy issue yet. She’s a good eater like Jameson though in terms of just being able to do it: not a lot of gagging. However, she seems to be more prone to putting fistfuls of food (or anything else) in her mouth, so we have to have a hawk eye on her all the time now. A favorite game is to see who, me or her, can make it to the dog first who is eating her cookie treat and leaving crumbs everywhere.

children

Sledding

February 13, 2014 No Comments

Last weekend, Jameson spent the afternoon at Grandma and Poppa’s while Brian, Coraline and I ran some errands. When we returned later that afternoon, I headed home to their house early so I could capture some of Jameson sled riding since I missed it the first time!

Grandma and Poppa have two sleds. One is a classic one with metal skates, and the other a more modern basic plastic one. The snow was deep, so the classic one went a little slower, perfect for Jameson and Grandma to ride down together.

Grandpa did pave the way a couple times and test out the plastic sled to see how fast it was going to go (really fast).

There is a stump a little in the way of their perfect sled-riding hill in the backyard that they’re going to remove this year, so we were cautious of him going down himself. But after Grandma stopped him from going too fast on the plastic sled he insisted on riding, we gave in and let him ride the one with the metal skates all by himself! Then he moved on to the plastic sled, but starting just a bit further down the hill.

He even let me ride with him once. But only once, because I went faster than I expected and screamed and threw snow into his face when I stopped us at the bottom. And I may have squished his face a bit.

Jameson had a great time sledding and making snow angels with Grandma and Poppa, and I think everyone got a workout going up and down the hill. (Especially Grandma who kept asking Jameson if he wanted pulled back up the hill on the sled, haha!)

children

Bob the Bobcat

February 10, 2014 No Comments

Jameson has started a winter soccer league, his very first team sport for us to try. So far, he is a big fan of his shin guards, which have skeletons on them.

The league is nice in that it is also a class. At the beginning everyone sat down and were divided amongst three coaches.

We’ve had two classes now, and Jameson is particularly shy, which surprised us since he attends daycare. We thought he would feel natural amongst other kids, but as it turns out he is very familiar with daycare and this was out of his comfort zone.

I tried to capture this adorable posture he does when he is feeling shy. He ducks his head a bit to the side against his shoulder and stands straight and narrow, hands to his sides.

Brian and I alternated with him, to help him feel comfortable, and then he was happy to participate. Given his shyness, I am happy we decided to do this, not only for the activity over the winter, but also to introduce him to these kinds of situations. He also learned how to “tick tock” the ball to move it more slowly instead of just kicking.

They teach the children that the ball is named Bob the Bobcat and they bite fingers, but not feet because they’re stinky. We were happy with how they spoke to the kids at their level, and Jameson is just starting to get the hang of not touching this ball. At first he wanted to dribble it like a basketball!

Then it was my turn, and we had a little sit down with the head coach before having some free play. I think when they get a little more familiar there will be more structure for “games” but even then, for kids this young, they throw out multiple balls and everyone can kick toward any goal.

This one with his tongue out is my favorite!

Jameson started getting tired about halfway through free play (as did Coraline) and he wanted a drink of water. He was ready to get home!

At the end, we got to sit down and get stamps. They told the kids the stamps make them run faster, so after his second session, Jameson ran around afterwards just testing it out.

All the kids came together at the end for a hurrah which was cute! They are all on “team purple”. The older kids have real teams, but the young ones are all on the same team. It is pretty fun to watch, and if he likes it we’ll do it again for another season.

children

Jameson the Preschooler

February 5, 2014 No Comments

Jameson turned 3 a little over a month ago, and I’ve neglected to talk about how our 3 year old preschooler is doing daily. He loves to tell us that he goes to preschool, and even demonstrated how teachers read books by doing it with Coraline and Sasha.

What Jameson is Wearing:

Size 24 month pants (mostly for the waistband). He has a few in the 2T size, which fit better lengthwise for sure, but the cinching straps are pulled pretty tight!
2T shits, but 3T looks okay if a little big on him. Loves to wear sweatshirts because they’re soft.
Size 2T-3T Pull ups at night, but big boy underwear all day, everyday!
Two piece penguin pajamas any nights they’re clean.
Chapstick from Aunt Melissa

What Jameson is Eating:

Meatballs, chicken nugget, hot dog, and most any meat he can eat with ketchup and only with ketchup
Meemaw’s spaghetti, but for the most part he only eats a bite of it anywhere else
Cucumbers and carrots with ranch
Baby oranges (the biggest of the baby oranges)
“Special” yogurts. These come in the tubes and are special because we used to only let him have them on the weekend. He has them everyday now for convenience and because he stopped eating the kind with fruit on the bottom. We try to stick with the greek tube yogurts without characters all over them (my request)
Tootsie roll treats for wiping himself on the potty and having no accidents overnight (that last one doesn’t happen frequently right now)
Most candy, except skittles and hard candies which we don’t let him have.
Not a big fan of trying all of his food. There is usually a lot of negotiating. Threats to go to bed or no TV don’t seem to work. I don’t require a clean plate, but we try to have him try everything on his plate every night.
Granola bars, which are becoming a problem right now since he wants them all the time.
Cheeseburgers from McDonalds (only those, cheeseburgers anywhere else he barely touches even when he says he wants them)
Orange juice and cranberry juice.

What Jameson is Saying:

Jameson is starting to tell stories and “lies” though he doesn’t know them as such. He insisted he peed in his clothes at the end of school, I guessed so that he could change into PJs at home. He also told us he flew in a helicopter for vacation after seeing one in a book.
He loves to pretend to be a monster and scare or surprise us in the morning or before bed.
He can count up to the teens, then they get all mixed up. They work on numbers up to 20 at school.
When recounting his day at school, the first thing out of his mouth is always “Logan came back!” and “Nathan came back!” even though they are both full time kids and also “come back” everyday.
A recent favorite conversation, about nutrition week at school on the day they learned about fats and sweets.

“Jameson, did you learn about fats today?”
“They’re bad”
“Are candy fats?”
“No, candy is good to eat!”
“What kinds of food are bad?”
“Hmmm… Broccoli is bad!”

What Jameson Likes These Days:

Reading stories at bedtime, as many as we will read to him. And when those are done, he sometimes looks for “song books” for us to sing to him in bed. Books he likes include most of the library books we bring home, his vacation book with pictures from vacation last September, his new Thomas the Tank Engine books, his big long Dinosaur book from Christmas… really I could go on. He likes so many of his books.
TV Shows: Handy Manny, Jake & The Neverland Pirates, less of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood unless it’s a new one, Sophia the First (it’s not one he requests but he likes it when its on)
Movies: Monsters Inc & University, Lion King, Toy Story (he cried while watching Toy Story 3–because the bad babydoll was crying. I don’t think he understood the baby doll was bad), Tinkerbell, The Lorax on the ipad.
The ipad, games and mostly the PBS show app where he can pick what he wants to watch, which isn’t usually the same thing we watch on TV. On the ipad, he frequently selects Super Why and Clifford The Big Red Dog.
Playing soccer, which we just started this month. He likes to wear his shin guards.
“Playing” with Coraline (on his terms) or making her laugh.
Big boy underwear to bed. He never gets it, so he wants it. We tell him we need him to practice calling for mommy and daddy at night, which he has only done once a couple months ago.
Listening to skidamarinkadinkadink and two Christmas songs which we can’t get away from: Rudolf and the 12 Days of Christmas
Puzzles! Every since Meemaw and I did a puzzle over Christmas break.
He little bear Duffy, his brown blanket, and then he alternates between loving on his midsize bear Bobby or the other two little bears.
Doing the recycling. He loves to throw the recycling boxes out into the garage. Dad also let him give Sasha water the other day. Starting those chores early!

What Jameson Doesn’t Like These Days:

Napping at home, not even resting unless he’s really exhausted or ill. He still naps at daycare 4 out of 5 days a week, but gave up naps at home a year ago.
Trying food, or really, sitting still to eat at all.
Being told “no” or “not right now” in any way, particularly with watching his TV shows or having snacks before dinner.
Drinking milk
Occasionally insisting on NO songs before bed, for some reason he doesn’t want this as much anymore. When he does want a song, it’s always Old McDonald who has a turkey, rooster or pig.
Kisses from Sasha (haha)

What Jameson is Doing:

Going potty without having any accidents, unless he gets too wrapped up in playing and he has a little one. But otherwise we don’t need to tell him ever.
Hugs, kisses, high fives and knuckles with his friends and family for greeting and saying goodbyes.
Cleaning up messes from Coraline eating with his broom and dust pan or toy vacuum.
Practicing using a knife. We got him new plasticwear utensils which included relatively dull knives which he loves to use to cut his food.
Making Coraline laugh
Stalling before bedtime.
Having sleepovers with Aunt Melissa where they get to do all kinds of fun things like go to the bounce house center, playgrounds, and the movies.
He has seen his first movie at the theater with Lily, her mom and myself, and then another one with Aunt Melissa! He sits on our lap and sits perfectly for the entire movie.

What We Are Working On:

Cleaning up and putting things away when we are done with them. Sometimes he does this voluntarily and suprises me but I’d love to see it more consistent. He really is a good helper when he focuses on the task.
Sharing his toys with his sister, and even her own toys which he likes to play with too.
Sharing TV time.
Trying food, or really, sitting still to eat at all.
Calling for mommy and daddy at night when he needs to go potty. However, he is a very deep sleeper and we cannot wake him enough to try and help him learn this in the middle of the night.
Apologizing after not listening to mommy and daddy. We are struggling with how to handle his tantrums, whether he needs quiet time or a time out (depending on whether hitting was involved in the tantrum) and trying to teach him to count to ten to help him calm down. This is not a frequent thing, and mostly happens when he doesn’t have a nap and is overtired.

And then I decided to do a little interview with him, so he could tell us his favorite things in his own words. However, I think most of what came out of his mouth was what popped in his head first. Haha! He also couldn’t really focus much on me, and ran around like a crazy monkey. I think this is typical toddler, but was pretty funny so I am glad I video recorded it.

Here are the questions, though I didn’t get to ask all of them before he got so distracted he stopped answering.

What is your name? Jameson Charles Thomas
How old are you? 3
What is your favorite color? Brown (Often this is actually orange but he calls it brown sometimes, especially when he turns on his stars at night with the Twilight Turtle)
What is your favorite animal? A horse
What is your favorite book? Pete the Cat
What is your favorite TV show? Handy Manny
What is your favorite movie? Lion King
What is your favorite song? Muffin Man (not sure where this one came from!)
What is your favorite food? Macaroni
What food do you not like? Grilled Cheese (he actually tends to like this, but claimed he was “too big” for it in this interview)
What is your favorite drink? Orange Juice
What is your favorite snack? Cranberries (which he never has had… he usually selects a granola bar, candy, fruit snacks or nuts lately)
What makes you laugh? Coraline
What is your favorite thing to wear? Sweatshirt
What is your favorite game? Raisins (what…)
What is your favorite toy? A football (he actually doesn’t really have a football or play with it inside, I wonder if he was thinking of soccer)
Who is your best friend? Nathan (in the past he has volunteered that Lily is his best friend as well)
What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Big Corduroy (this is his enormous bear he got from Santa, and he does not sleep in his bed so that was interesting. I was really surprised he did not say Duffy)
Where is your favorite place to go? Here (the top of the couch, which I only let him up on because I was trying to get this interview done, haha!)
Where do you want to go on vacation? To see Mickey Mouse
What do you like to do with your family? Hide (he was hiding behind the couch)
What do you want to be when you grow up? A baby
What did you do when you were little? Play with Coraline
What do you like to do now that you are big? Turn on the fireplace (which we really don’t let him do without close supervision…)
What is your favorite thing to learn in school? Nathan
What is your favorite thing to remember? I tried this but stopped getting answers.
What do you want to buy with your money? Didn’t get to ask this
What is the thing you do the most awesomely? Didn’t get to ask this

children, diy

Toddler-Friendly Pinwheels

February 4, 2014 No Comments

We are getting ready for a big girl to turn the big O-N-E in just a month and half, and we’ve decided her party theme is going to be pinwheels! I thought it would be a great idea to have a little pinless pinwheel craft for all the toddlers who are going to be at her party this year. I’ve never done a craft for the parties we have hosted before, but the kids are getting to an age that I think it would be fun.

I combed through the internet for some suggestions, but the best one that doesn’t use pins, I think, is this one using pipe cleaners. You wouldn’t think that it would spin properly, but it does! Another option was using brads, but I don’t think those will spin quite as well.

First you need to prepare the paper for the kids. Kid scissors won’t work well here! haha. You will want a square paper, which you can get easily from a standard 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper by folding one edge together to make a triangle and cutting along the line. You can watch this video for direction as well!

Fold your square the other way so you have 4 triangles in your folds. Don’t forget, when you fold into the triangles, cut the center by trimming the tip off the triangle. That way you don’t need to try to get a hole punch there.

Cut down the triangle folds until you’re about an inch or a little less to the center. Then you’ll want to hold punch one corner on each triangle.

It’s time to decorate! Make sure you decorate both sides!

Then you’ll need half a pipe cleaner (chenille stick), a glue stick or a stapler (we are opting for the stapler), and something to attach it to. These are sticks for candy, but we’re going to use fun pencils for the party.

Wrap one of the chenille a couple times to make a stopper for the front of the pinwheel, and put the chenille through each hole for the pinwheel shape. Then you can staple it together. You do want to staple or attach the paper together some way so that it will spin. Otherwise, the paper will open itself up against the chenille and stick and get stuck. Stapling will let you leave the chenille a little loose so it can still spin.

Jameson at 3 had a bit of trouble blowing on it to make it go, but I showed him he could run around with it and make it spin as well and he thought that was fun, for all of a minute.

children

Visit from Griffin & Uncle Mike

February 3, 2014 No Comments

A couple weeks ago, Coraline got all dressed up for a visit from Brian’s Uncle Mike and cousin Griffin. Who couldn’t love that adorable skirt on her!?

We went over to Grandma and Poppa’s house to play and visit, along with Aunt Melissa and her boyfriend Vince. As usual, we had to get out all the guys (stuffed animals) at Grandma’s house.

The jack-in-the-box was a hit with both kids, though Coraline mostly wanted to eat the clown’s face. I loved Jameson’s exaggerated excitement face.

Jameson loved playing with his older cousin Griffin. They had fun playing cars. We’ve had a tough time getting Jameson to stop playing and sit down to eat lately though!

Coraline also wanted to play with the cars like the boys.

After dinner with lasagna and meatballs, it was time to open some belated Christmas gifts.

As usual though some of the best toys were empty boxes. I may have encouraged it a little by putting Coraline in one first.

life with baby

Coraline is Two Hands Old

January 16, 2014 No Comments

What a big month for Coraline! From Christmas, to New Years, to her first experience in the snow. Coraline even got her third tooth, which you can see a little in this photo! We were so lucky to be able to have Coraline home a lot this month with Christmas breaks, and unfortunately for a little illness from daycare, hand foot and mouth disease.

It’s hard to see here in this photo, but she had a rash on the backs of her hands and her feet up to her legs. This particular virus presented itself differently (and much milder) than the traditional form of the disease which is usually on the palms and soles of feet. The doctor did diagnose her though since he saw some sores in the back of her mouth, so we kept her home for a couple days. Luckily, it was over the weekend, so we didn’t need to keep her home as long as we would’ve during the week, since the doctor recommended 3-4 days.

She has been teething most of this month, getting a lot of teeth in. Aside from the one that came in, I believe her other top tooth is nearly broken through, and the two on either side have been swollen most of this month as well. It hasn’t prevented her from eating (well, she did get fussy with the bottle occasionally). She loves solid food, the kind which she can put in her mouth herself. She loved the ham that Meemaw made, and noodles are also a favorite. She’s had chicken nugget as well and cleaned it up. However, the baby food has gotten a bit more difficult, and she now lets us know that she’s done by spitting it out back at us. She can sit in her high chair for an hour or more if we kept giving her finger foods to eat!

Coraline has been putting everything, even items which are not food, in her mouth. I don’t remember Jameson being the same way, because he learned that things like the fuzz from dog toys don’t taste good. I have found now Jameson’s plastic coin from Christmas, a sharp piece of wicker from a basket, and fuzz in her mouth. She leaves it in there and rolls them around in her mouth until I realize she has something with gagging.

She’s pretty funny, throwing her head back against the jumparoo and jumping or swaying with her head back. She also learned to click her tongue, though she does it rarely. Her current favorite babble is nananana (having already done mamama and dadada earlier). Coraline just loves to show us things that she picks up, which is funny every time. She still twirls her feet, but she doesn’t want to sit still nearly as much now! She’s learned to scoot!

children, life with baby

Snow Play

January 14, 2014 No Comments

This was Coraline’s first snow experience on New Year’s Day! We unboxed Jameson’s old snow suit, but realized we had no boots for her so we improvised with pajamas, a couple plastic bags, and a couple layers of socks. We were only outside with her for about 20 minutes, but she had a good time looking around. She was pretty happy to be in my arms, and a little concerned and curious about the snow but overall did great!

We brought out the sled for Jameson who loved daddy pulling him. He didn’t even mind too much when he fell off this year and was really thrilled to be outside having fun. The process of getting two kids in their snow suits though was the least fun part.

Coraline was not a huge fan of Jameson’s snow covered mittens covering her face. Oops!

After Coraline went in, we let Sasha out for a bit. Sasha always loves snow balls. She acts like a puppy again in the snow, but like Coraline we limited her play time outside since she tires easily. She happily went back inside to nap afterwards.

We were excited the snow lasted into the weekend, since it always seems that it melts away before we get a chance to play in it. The rising temperatures made it perfect to build a snowman, and Jameson and daddy got to make too! They even pulled carrots up from the garden for noses.

When Jameson talked to grandma on the phone later about his snowmen, he said that he wanted her to bring a hat (he loves the Frosty the Snowman song). Unfortunately the snowmen melted before she could come over with a hat; maybe next time!

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